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Mayor Lionheart
'Mayor Leodore Lionheart '''is a male lion and a supporting character in Disney's ''Zootopia. He is the longstanding mayor of Zootopia and is voiced by J.K. Simmons. Official Bio Mayor Leodore Lionheart is the noble leader of Zootopia, who coined the city’s mantra that Judy Hopps lives by: "In Zootopia, anyone can be anything."http://movies.disney.com/zootopia Personality Lionheart is a rather controversial figure. He generally presents himself as a charming, noble and inspiring leader. His will to ensure all mammals are treated equally within his city supports this, as his goals are primarily focused on keeping his citizens, and the city itself, safe. Another notable goal of Lionheart is to ensure all mammals are given a chance to live their dreams, coining the phrase which Judy Hopps lives by: "In Zootopia, anyone can be anything". To do so, he enacted the Mammal Inclusion Initiative, an act which provides all animals with high-ranking opportunities to ensure equality among the predator and prey citizens. In addition to his nobility, Lionheart was one of the extreme few individuals in Zootopia to never show any signs of bigotry, instead judging mammals by their character rather than their species, and was notably annoyed by those who did otherwise. However, Lionheart is not devoid of negative traits. Though his main goal was to keep Zootopia safe, he was willing to go to illegal lengths to achieve these goals. When predator mammals start going savage, Lionheart takes the issue of solving the problem into his own hands by assembling a team of wolves to capture any savage animal and keep them imprisoned until a cure can be found, keeping the entire situation a secret from both the public and the ZPD as a mean to avoid civil unrest, an illegal practice. Furthermore, his success can be attributed to his affirmative-action styled policies and espousing equality. This could be considered a lip-service, as outside of his noble public persona, he is a proud and boisterous career politician that displays a certain amount of pompousness and sarcasm, as well as impatience and intolerance towards even the slightest amount of incompetence. This can make him seem cold and cruel to his inferiors, most notably his deputy mayor Dawn Bellwether, whom he treats more like a secretary and a stooge than an actual assistant mayor, despite the hefty amount of work she puts into assisting him. This can also be seen with Chief Bogo who, despite being against some of Lionheart's political decisions, refrained from doing anything to upset the latter, even becoming visibly anxious when his name is mentioned. Despite his nobility, Lionheart's actions were not always out of pure selflessness; he appears to care greatly about his own reputation, and in fact many of the decisions he made were done at least partly to secure his position as Mayor. This was a partial reason for creating the Mammal Inclusion Initiative, as creating opportunities for prey meant winning the favor among the majority of Zootopia. This was also a partial reason for his illegal imprisonment of the savage predators; during the confidential operation, Lionheart is directly advised to come forward due to the urgency of the situation, but he immediately refuses, expressing his fear of losing his job as a result of the prey citizens (the majority of the population) revolting against having a predator as their Mayor. Lionheart tends to justify his negative traits by claiming them to be done for the sake of the greater good. Though he is truthful in this regard, this probably indicates that he sees no harm in doing something illegal if its for the sake of something he values. Role in the Film Lionheart first appears during the graduation ceremony of Judy Hopps from the Zootopia Police Academy, praising her as his first police officer to be a rabbit. Judy's impressive record prompts Lionheart to assign her to the highest precinct in the department, located right across from City Hall at the heart of Zootopia. However, when Assistant Mayor Bellwether starts talking to Judy on stage, Lionheart rather rudely pushes Bellwether aside and takes photos with Judy. Unbeknownst to Lionheart, his head officer, Bogo, disapproves of the mayor's decision to add Judy as a member of the force, but begrudgingly abides out of fear. Meanwhile, Zootopia faces a crisis: various predator mammals across the city have lost their sanity and become mindlessly aggressive, violent and "savage". The cause of the outbreak has yet to be discovered, with Lionheart being one of the only citizens to have knowledge of this. He takes the issue of solving the problem into his own hands by assembling a team of elite wolf guards to patrol the city and capture the savage animals, imprisoning them at an old asylum on the outskirts of the city, where Dr. Madge Honey Badger is stationed to find a cure; the entire situation was purposely kept confidential as a means to avoid civil unrest, making it an illegal operation. Over the span of two weeks, a total of fifteen afflicted predators occupy the asylum, and uncovering the mystery behind their disappearances becomes the top priority at the ZPD. The situation also takes a toll on Lionheart's mental health, with his temper more unruly than usual, and unintentionally taken out on Bellwether. With his afternoon cleared curtesy of his assistant, Lionheart visits the asylum for updates, only to find that the cause of the outbreak is still unknown. Frustrated with the delays, Lionheart aggressively confronts Dr. Badger on her incompetence, to which the latter responds by hypothesizing the outbreak to be linked to "biology". She points out that the only animals going savage are predators, implying that they may be reverting back to their primitive instincts. Badger then advises Lionheart to inform the public of the dire situation, but the mayor refuses, knowing the balance between predator and prey would be broken out of fear should word get out, while also alluding to his own personal insecurities, as the rapid distrust towards predators, such as himself, could ruin his career as Mayor. When asked about Chief Bogo's thoughts on the matter, Lionheart admits that Bogo is being kept in the dark. Just then, Lionheart hears the ringtone of a phone, and removes himself from the scene while Badger alerts the guards. The spies were Judy and her accomplice, fox Nick Wilde, who recorded Lionheart's admission and argument with Dr. Badger. The pair subsequently inform Bogo of the not-so-legal operation. The asylum is raided that night by the ZPD, and Lionheart is arrested along with Dr. Badger. As Bogo and Judy escort him to a patrol car, Lionheart protests his innocence, explaining that he was trying to protect the city, though Judy unsympathetically accuses him of caring for his job and nothing more. Lionheart warns Judy of the danger that the savage outbreak holds, and if a cure can't be found, it could lead to the destruction of Zootopia; his words are nevertheless dismissed, and the former mayor is subsequently removed from office. Bellwether, meanwhile, rises to power in his place. Unfortunately, Lionheart's fears prove to be correct. The news that predators are the only mammals going savage causes citywide panic, with prey mammals developing a heightened fear of predators, who in turn face direct discrimination and injustice. Over time, many more predators fall under the mysterious infliction, leading to public attacks, though Lionheart is now powerless to suppress it. In the end, however, it is revealed that the predators were not turned savage through "natural instinct", but through a psychotropic serum concocted by Bellwether's henchman from unique flowers called "night howlers", in her scheme to get all predators alienated from the city and usurp Lionheart. Due to Judy's heroism, Bellwether is arrested and removed from office, while the savage predators are successfully cured of their afflictions. When informed and interviewed on the matter, Lionheart explains that he had no knowledge of Bellwether's plot, but fully confesses to have illegally imprisoned the savage predators, confidently declaring it was 'a classic, "doing the wrong thing for the right reason" kind of a deal'. Despite this, he remains in jail, as he is last seen reading a Fancy Cat Magazine behind bars during Gazelle's concert. However, despite his previous intense fear of losing his reputation, Lionheart now appears rather unfazed by his fate. However, as shown in the sequel comic, he is later released from prison and reinstated as Mayor. Relationships Bellwether Lionheart appears to treat his assistant mayor, Dawn Bellwether, with little respect, effectively ordering her around more like a secretary and a stooge than an actual assistant mayor, which Bellwether alludes to. In addition to dumping work on her and occasionally lashing out, he will also push her aside when in public, stealing the spotlight. Lionheart also has Bellwether's office located in a small utility room with a loud water heater and stacks of file boxes lining the wall outside her door. He also occasionally calls Bellwether "Smellwether", and though Bellwether claims this is just a "fun little name" he uses from time to time, he is only shown using it when he is particularly irritated with her. When she does similarly, calling him "Lionfart" as a joke, it is assumed that he took it badly from Bellwether's assertion that it was not a good day for her. However, though Lionheart tends to treat Bellwether unequally, it is possible that he is not quite as abusive to her as he may seem, as Bellwether herself reveals that Lionheart once made an effort to actually get her a gift, though it was merely a mug labelled "World's Greatest Dad", with the "Dad" bit scribbled and replaced with "Assistant Mayor" through a marker. Unbeknown to Lionheart, Bellwether secretly holds a fierce grudge against him due to his treatment of her, and secretly plots to exact revenge by taking over his position as Mayor. Judy Hopps Judy Hopps is the ZPD's first rabbit officer, and is thus awarded her badge in a ceremony attended by the Mayor. His mammal inclusion initiative is cited as the reasoning behind her graduation, though to what extent this is true relies heavily upon how highly Judy's drill instructor thought of her by the end of her course. Nevertheless, Lionheart shows no signs of prejudice towards Judy, as he readily and quite happily accepts her into the ZPD, even rather proudly noting her to be the first rabbit to join the Force. Judy is the officer who then ends up incriminating Lionheart in the missing mammal cases, and he is seen protesting for his innocence as the larger members of the ZPD take him away. Chief Bogo Lionheart isn't seen interacting with Bogo very often, but from what the two say about each other, they evidently do not quite see eye to eye. While Lionheart evidently respects Bogo as an incorruptible upholder of the law, this ends up causing a distinct lack of trust from Lionheart to Bogo, as he is unwilling to tell the Police chief about what he knows in regards to the missing mammals. Bogo has a certain amount of animosity towards Lionheart; he seems to see Lionheart as an overbearing presence on the force, seeing Judy's assignment to him as an affront to his authority as police chief, saying "Do you think the mayor asked what I wanted before he assigned you to me?" While Bogo does not show any deal of gratification while he arrests the Mayor, it is assumed that he is glad to be rid of Lionheart's overbearing presence. Dr. Madge Honey Badger Lionheart is seen taking an afternoon off in order meet with Madge to gauge progress on discovering what is making the predators go savage. He shares a fairly one-sided relationshp with her, largely thanks to their respective size, allowing Lionheart to tower over Madge and for Madge to be fairly subservient to him. It is Madge's assertion that the savagery may be something to do with biology which ends up causing Lionheart's impeachment. Trivia * Lionheart is the 52nd mayor of Zootopia. *Lionheart's position as mayor originally went to Mayor Swinton in early versions of the film. *Lionheart is the only lion in the film to not have a generic character model. *Lionheart claims that he invented the slogan "anyone can be anything". However, according to young Judy Hopps, the founders of Zootopia invented this slogan. It's possible that he adopted the slogan to earn himself voters. However, this is questionable, considering the fact that the film makers have directly stated that Lionheart "coined" the slogan. *Lionheart has small scars on his nose; in real life, a male adult lion would obtain these scars from fighting with other lions over territory and pride members. *When designing Lionheart, Disney animators looked to and got inspiration from Mufasa in Disney's The Lion King. It is also possible that certain features about him, such as his name, personality and appearance, were also inspired by King Richard the Lionhearted from another Disney film, [http://disney..com/wiki/Robin_Hood_(1973_film) Robin Hood]. *Lionheart's first name is a combination of "Leo" and "Theodore". *Lionheart having the aid of Bellwether is most likely a reference to the Biblical passage "The Lion and the Lamb". **Rich Moore has said that it is a bit of a reference to the old saying "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb".Rich Moore via Twitter, May 8th 2016 Quotes Gallery References Category:Males Category:Politicians Category:Supporting Characters Category:Characters Category:Lions Category:Cats Category:Predators